Are you okay mom? That is becoming a regular question around my home lately as my daughter is noticing that I have just not been myself. Many days, I feel as though I am losing the battle with fear, discouragement and condemnation. Struggles I long believed to have gained victory over have returned to the surface of my heart and mind with a vengeance, often leaving me weak and overwhelmed.
In these moments, every well meaning yet ultimately fruitless piece of advice I have been given over the years begins to run through my mind:
“When the battle is hardest, that is when you must press in to take hold of your victory”.
“You just need to read the Word more.”
“There is a lesson to be learned in this.”
“Maybe you have opened a door to the enemy.”
“I know a formula to break free from the curse you are under.”
“You should take this program, it worked when I was struggling.”
“You wouldn’t be facing this much opposition if you were not heading in the right direction.”
“It is a timing thing.”
“You need to change your heart.”
“If God was going to do it, he would have done it by now.”
And on and on the list goes. The result? I am confused and even more hopeless than I was to begin with. Is there some truth to these words? Perhaps. But I know one thing to be true: when I begin working myself into a frenzy to try and find the solution, I end up frustrated and, often times, angry with God for not coming to my rescue.
When I think He should be speaking clearly, He remains silent. When I seek answers, I am faced with more questions. When I believe my answer is on the way, I am met with yet another season of waiting. The days, months and years pass and still I am left longing for a breakthrough that seems more unattainable now than it ever has.
I don’t need Sunday school answers. I will not be set free by a formula. Answers offered in these times are often offered only because there is nothing else to say.
What do I need?
I need to wrestle with God. I need to ask the difficult and painful questions and find out if I am content with never getting the answers I am looking for. I need to face my fear. I need to look years of guilt and regret in the face and decide if I will continue to dwell or pick up and move on.
I need to settle in my own heart the issue of the goodness of God. If I never get what I long for, is God still good? Has he allowed me to waste ten years of my life hoping and waiting for a promise that was never mine to have? Is He truly willing to take the rubble of my life and turn it into something worth living for? Or has He withheld everything good from me?
I need to stop looking to people to fix me. I am not broken. I am not a project. I am a child of God. I struggle. I fail. I cry. I doubt. I judge. I quit. I screw up. And deep down, I hope.
I hope that I have not fallen too far to be redeemed. I hope that despite appearances and the opinions of others, my dreams will still come true. I hope that all the waiting and trying and struggling have not been in vain. I hope that breakthrough, as far off as it seems, has not eluded me.
Am I okay? As long as I never quit wrestling, I will always be okay.
Fire Starter 